


From the Vantage of Forgetting

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: The Broken Earth Series - N. K. Jemisin
Genre: (or attempting them), Bittersweet, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: Memories sift through Schaffa’s fingers like silt.
Relationships: Schaffa Guardian Warrant/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	From the Vantage of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



Memories sift through Schaffa’s fingers like silt. He can sometimes grasp at one, but it is wily, and he is usually left with impressions of events and people he can never quite hold.

Memories are only reconstructions at best, and his are much less than that, hardly more than phantom limbs that haven’t quite realized they’re gone.

The one that he has settled on is somewhat more still, easier to hold. Nassun sleeps, leaning against his shoulder. The days of walking have been long. He won’t wake her. But he has dealt with children for many, many years. He knows how to keep them sleeping.

“It was a long time ago, before the Fulcrum had been built…” he begins.

(You have never heard this story. Nassun doesn’t, either. This is Schaffa’s alone. It makes him, and so, I suppose, it has also made you.)

It was before the Fulcrum was built, before the Sanzeds had established themselves, before the warlord had won her battles. (She hadn’t yet been born to fight them.)

Orogenes were more common, always wild, terribly powerful. The Guardians rode from comm to comm, following distress calls and the most noticeable of orogeny. If the offending rogga was still alive when they arrived, or a child that could yet be tamed, they would take them off the comm’s hands and place them in node stations, if any needed filling. Otherwise, they took what they needed from them. The roggas rarely survived this procedure, for Guardians—without the convenience of the Fulcrum—were often overzealous.

This was a comm like most other comms. Near the coast, narrowly surviving an eruption from a shield volcano. The rogga was powerful and quite adept at her craft for one who had never been trained. She had saved this comm and surrounding ones. Schaffa and his companion meant to kill her.

She had a brother, however.

The comm’s headwoman greeted Schaffa with typical wariness. “We thought she was one of us. She deceived us all her life. Her family helped her, Evil Earth.” She shuddered.

“Ah, that is unusual.” Schaffa smiled in reassurance. She was not reassured.

“We’ve got her in that shed.” She pointed at a squat building, possibly once a storecache, now repurposed. Schaffa nodded and approached.

“Wait, please don’t hurt her.”

Schaffa glanced down, annoyed. The man was shorter than the headwoman, with black hair similar in texture to Schaffa’s but a complexion that resembled what you would call an Equatorial, wearing the uniform of a Resistant. He stood in front of the shed, arms crossed over his chest, jaw set.

“It is what I must do, for her own good,” Schaffa said, smiling more widely than he had at the headwoman. “What if she…slips and sets off that volcano, hmm?”

“Lune would never do that. She never has. Why would she start now?” The man held his ground as Schaffa came closer.

“You’re a still,” Schaffa noted.

“She’s my sister. I’ll do anything to protect her.”

The truth was that Schaffa had every intention of thrusting this man out of the way. But _Lune_ had caught his attention. It was similar to a word long forgotten in a language long dead, and something at the back of his mind ached at the sound of it. He smiled tightly, and the pain passed.

There was something more, too. Something more than pain. Something a lot like warmth as he looked at the man standing in his way.

Perhaps none of what followed would have happened if he had expected it, but he was so rarely faced with attraction such as this that he’d almost forgotten about it.

Almost. When he remembered, it would be too late.

“She hasn’t hurt anyone. I won’t let you take her.” His hand drifted toward a stoneknife at his belt. “I’ll die before I let you take her.”

Brave indeed, to threaten a Guardian so. “Very well,” Schaffa replied, holding out a hand, palm facing upward.

They often died, but rarely in an attempt to protect their rogga loved one. Rarely was the rogga loved.

He did not break the man’s hand or draw him close to snap his neck. Instead, they simply stood, hand in hand. Schaffa couldn’t bring himself to do what he must.

Schaffa said, “You love her, though she is a danger to herself and you.”

Ree—it may not have been his name, but it felt right—said, “She’s not a danger to anyone. She’s human, too.”

Schaffa smiled wider still. “They are better off alone, unable to do harm. You don’t need them.” The words felt hollow.

Ree seemed to sense it, his expression softening. “But I do.”

He smiled a smile of something like contentment, cracking around the edges because he had seen too many orogenes die, had killed more than he ever wanted (he never wanted) had hurt for love because needs must (needs always must).

But there was no risk of a child here, and the sister was not yet dead, so Schaffa made his excuses, gritted his teeth against that flare of pain that spidered out from the back of his head and said, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Ree grinned. “Drinks aren’t cheap.” Then he winked.

The pain was meaningless after the fourth drink, as was most everything else.

Nassun stirs as he pauses. He kisses her forehead, murmurs “shhh little one”, and then resumes his tale.

There isn’t much left to tell.

They spent the night together, ending up in a bed in a room whose location was lost to time. Probably fucked. Possibly spooned.

It didn’t end well.

(Schaffa knows. He remembers the woman that may have been pregnant with his child. He remembers Leshet. There were no happy endings. But with Ree, he cannot remember an ending. So he has to make one.)

It couldn’t have ended well. He couldn’t ride away having left an orogene alive. But pretend that he did. Pretend that he spent a night, maybe even several nights, in this comm and rode off without killing Lune and thus ending whatever he’d had with her brother.

_Pretend._

Schaffa was not the only Guardian there. His companion was far less forgiving.

But he pretends for tonight.


End file.
